


That Tiny Instant of All Eternity

by sian1359



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Esteefee's Multi-Fandom HugFest 2012 but it got too long for comment fic.</p><p>Title comes from the end quote by Jacques Prévert's</p>
    </blockquote>





	That Tiny Instant of All Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Esteefee's Multi-Fandom HugFest 2012 but it got too long for comment fic.
> 
> Title comes from the end quote by Jacques Prévert's

When Phil finds Clint, his agent, his archer, his _everything_ , is asleep. Clint looks so _young_ as he sleeps curled around Phil's pillow, so lost. Alone in Phil's bed with nothing but memories and dreams to keep him company. Nightmares, too, Phil fears, or maybe it is only pain that causes the furrows and little movements and noises of distress.

Removing his clothes, Phil is careful only to keep quiet, all thoughts of caring about something other than this man before him not even entering his mind as he lets the components of his suit – his uniform – crumple into a heap at his feet.  In some ways he's happy to see Clint resting, hopes he _is_ resting, and knows that once they're together, rest will come. To the both of them.

If this also means Phil can put off the inevitable for a little longer, well…

He's already dealt with everyone else's recriminations and hostility (wonders still how long it will take Natasha to forgive him or when the others _trust_ him again, if ever; their ever trusting Nick is probably a lost cause). Having Clint yell at or hit him – _turn away_ from him – isn't what Phil needs right now, even if he deserves it because he'd gone along with Nick's plan, had been the one to suggest something of its nature in the first place, when it had looked like everything was going to be lost.

(When _he'd_ been lost, because Loki had taken Clint. Phil hadn't needed any other _cause_ to fight Loki, to be willing to sacrifice himself.)

In other ways, though, it makes Phil's stomach clinch, makes the phantom pain in his chest become real (they're going to need to work on the interface for when the LMDs take damage, maybe find a way to make them wholly autonomous, or they're just not going to be useful within SHIELD). Clint's asleep, even with the noise and disruption that Phil is making while climbing in next to Clint, because Clint's still under the affects of earlier sedation. Not sedated because Clint was still a risk, thank god. Or still _at_ risk from guilt and depression or even Phil's loss. Nor because Clint had no doubt been too wired even after such an adrenalin crash as would have come from the day – the days – that he'd just gone through.

No, he'd been sedated because Clint had apparently crashed himself through the plate glass window of a Manhattan skyscraper and then had neglected to get himself check out afterward. Neglected to even mention it to anyone after the day was won, with Loki and the Chitauri defeated and, yes, every one of the Avengers had been bruised, battered and bloodied when it was finally over, along with thousands of civilians and hundreds of SHIELD agents, but still. It didn't take a degree in psychology (which Phil had – a Master's) to know that Clint had passed his pain off as penitence more than simply a part of the job. As if glass shards were acceptable as a scourge, and that they hadn't require fifty-seven stitches amongst three deep cuts that eventually couldn't continue to be ignored.

Phil wants to be angry that Clint had been so reckless, had cared so little. But he knows that this is as much his fault as Clint's, knows that he'd been just as reckless in using untested tech and even more reckless in testing Clint's heart, the both of them rather fractured when not together.

It's for this reason that Maria thinks their relationship is unacceptable. And why she's not as ready to fill Nick's shoes as she likes to think she is. Because she can't see that when they are whole (with or without Natasha added in to make something even greater), they more than make up for the times when they end up broken, and that when they are broken, they are simply men, just like everyone else (SHIELD has enough agents like that and _needs_ something more – there is a _reason_ they and Natasha belong in the Avengers alongside the gods and monsters, the superheroes and super geniuses). That they would never, regardless, allow their being together to be the thing that breaks SHIELD (or, now, the world), as Phil's recent 'death' and Clint's soldiering on has more than amply proved.

(Nick understands and will use them whole or wrecked as the situation demands, recognizing there is value in both states, and sometimes Phil really hates Nick Fury. In these instances – like now – he usually hates himself more, because he knows all of this and does nothing to change it. Does nothing to protect Clint, to protect _them_ , because in his world too, the ends all too often do matter more than the means.)

What Phil wants more, however, is to simply lie next to Clint, to hold him and feel him and breathe him in, angry or not, broken or not. Because both of them could have, _should_ have died today, only they hadn't, and neither had the world, and survival was one thing, but living meant so much more. Meant this.

Clint turns into him willingly, his body and subconscious accepting what his conscious mind might reject. For a few seconds they simply cling to one another, a hug – a declaration – and Phil might have regrets, but this will never be one of them. It's short-lived though; he can tell when Clint's awareness overrides his acceptance, his body stiffening for a moment before shoving them away from one another, fast enough, hard enough that Phil almost falls off the bed, and Clint hisses as he pulls against his bruises and stitches.

"What Loki killed was one of the LMDs," Phil says quickly, knowing it is only the injuries that have slowed Clint from already reaching the knife he keeps by the bedside and holding it to Phil's throat, or planting it somewhere in Phil's body. He also knows that Clint has read the intel on the Life Model Decoys, is one of the few within SHIELD or Stark Industries who has access to the data, and that Clint hasn't decided yet whether the tech is a good or bad thing; androids are one thing, but replicating real people…

Phil's not really sure how he feels about them himself, not even now, when using one saved his life and gave birth to the Avengers. There are certain things, he believes, that humanity isn't ready for.

"They aren't fully functional yet, so I had to be jacked-in to direct it," Phil continues, speaking quickly, urgently, because Clint is still looking murderous, not mollified. "And, apparently, dying while jacked-in creates a feedback loop."

Clint's eyes flick at that, looking him over just as carefully as before (and it's sometimes off-putting how well Clint sees, even in the near darkness of this room with only a crack letting in daylight from beyond the black-out curtain), but now with something closer to concern in their depths. Phil doesn't cover up or reach out, lets Clint catalogue his body with only a trace of self-consciousness (because while they've been together now for several years and Phil's body has no secrets from Clint, nor is he particularly body conscious, he's also no longer a young man and has never been as fit nor certainly as well-defined as Clint's body is).

After a few long moments where neither of them say anything, Clint slowly reaches out (with the hand not still holding the knife) and touches the scar just below Phil's right collarbone, the scar from the bullet that Clint had put into him to take down the Russian mob leader( who'd preferred little children and had presumed that because they'd been Americans, Phil couldn't make the hard call, that Clint would take the shot).

"No one was sure if I'd recover," Phil continues to explain as he tentatively reaches back to Clint, taking away the knife but only putting beneath the nearest pillow because he would never take away Clint's means of defending himself, nor never not trust Clint with a weapon. (From the video footage, even under Loki's control, Clint hadn't taken the headshots against Nick or Maria, not even against the other SHIELD agents with an arrow through the eye or a throat for an instant kill. He had been Loki's, but not a hundred percent.)

"That why you weren't told anything different," he says on as they come together again, murmuring the words against Clint's lips. "The squints were pretty sure I'd end up dying anyway. Nick, too. Hell, _me_ too. For a few seconds my brain convinced my body I'd really taken the hit. I guess they got me disconnected quickly enough, however," he adds between the kisses Clint starts frantically pressing on him. "As soon as I regained consciousness, Nick told me what he'd said, what he'd done. Then he ordered me to go find you."

The kisses taste wet and salty, the hug more clinging than comfort, with Phil just as desperate as Clint to have and give them.

"Tasha?" Clint finally says something, his voice as harsh and raw as Phil's breathing. "The team?"

"I found them first. They're all fine, if pissed off at me, and at Nick," Phil assures him, taking advantage of Clint's uncommon pliancy to roll onto his back and tug so that Clint lays his head atop Phil's shoulder. Almost instantly Clint shoves both of his legs under Phil's knees and shifts so his head is more over Phil's heart, with his hand coming up to rest along Phil's jaw. A few more seconds and their breathing starts to sync up, slowing and getting more under control as they get themselves back under control.

"Stark hi-jacked Banner and Rogers back to his tower, saying something about SHIELD not having the right to jail Avengers." Phil moves the arm Clint is more or less lying over to cup the back of Clint's head instead of stroking down his back and accidentally pressing against the damage. The other he folds around the hand Clint's pressed up against his neck "I guess Nick decided it wasn't worth raising a fuss, though he sent Natasha along to keep an eye on things. And Thor doesn't really have any place else to go while Dr. Foster is still in protective custody."

Clint makes a soft noise in response to that and Phil shrugs. "Thor doesn't want to chance her safety while Loki is still here on Earth, and the World Security Council is still arguing over whether they have the right to try Loki for his crimes. Not to mention whether the Vault is strong enough to hold him. Maria's been suggesting we just turn over the Tesseract and Loki to Thor, let him return both back to Asgard, and I think that's what Nick's going to do regardless of what the WSC's decides. Killing Loki isn't –"

"I'll do it," Clint mutters fiercely into his chest. "I told Tasha I'd put an arrow through his eye and damn, but I wanted to. Still want to. Fury shouldn't have names us Avengers if he wanted to keep his hands clean."

"I'd do it too," Phil presses his promise into Clint's hair. "Just for what he did to you. Fuck the helicarrier, Manhattan, and the rest."

"But we're going to need Thor," Clint finishes Phil's thought, not for the first time.

Clint's ability to follow Phil's tactics with very little instruction or input is one of the reasons they'd ended up together in the field, all those years ago. Most of the other handlers or his earlier COs had seen Clint's lack of formal education and thought him more tool than asset, a weapon to be pointed but not someone to listen to. Come to think of it, Clint's on-target insights and Phil's willingness to listen was most likely what had brought them together outside the field too.

"We're going to need Thor, at least until we get a better idea of what is out there," Phil agrees with a nod against their joined hands. "Undoubtedly there are worse things out there than mad Asgardians, and Chitauri."

"Oh, yay," Clint says sarcastically, and Phil can feel the scowl that his expression turns into. "Hopefully none of them show up before we have a chance to catch our breaths. Or get back into Fury's good graces."

"Before we recover," Phil adds, with a little squeeze against Clint's left hand in censure and comfort both. "Captain Rogers was pissed to find out you checked yourself out of Medical against advice. And I have to say, I'm not to happy about it either. But I understand," he says quickly when he feels Clint take a breath prior to defending himself. "I was so very glad to find you here."

Phil understands that this time it's more than Clint's general dislike of doctors and infirmaries, or his sometimes faulty perception of his own well-being and his innate refusal to let his body's frailties slow him down. Not only is SHIELD Medical currently filled with agents injured and worse, many as a direct result of actions Clint himself had been forced to take, but right now the thought of anyone else having the least control over Clint's body or movements has to be the stuff of nightmares. There is no way Clint could have slept in Medical without greater sedation (which would have brought with it, its own horror), much less actually recover. Here, though –

"Where else would I go?"

Phil hugs Clint closer to him at the hint of how broken Clint still is behind those words, but chooses the lighter tact instead of more soul-bearing. "I think Stark was rather hurt that you didn't want to join the rest of the team in his clubhouse," he points out. "You're the only one missing."

" _We're_ missing. Plus, his _clubhouse_ is missing a few windows, floors, and who knows what else," Clint huffs, his words softening and coming slower now, like his breaths and his heartbeat, now that the worst of this newest emotional storm is over. "Here we have running water, electricity, my favorite blanket and pillow…"

Phil breaths a quiet laugh into Clint's hair and simply holds on as Clint falls back to sleep. Clint's generally the one who runs as hot as a furnace, whose body is all the blanket Phil needs, or the pillow, although he is more than happy to offer that to Clint now or at anytime. To offer his home, his body, his love. Just having the opportunity to have this, to have Clint in his arms is the miracle, he thinks, not LMDs or defying the laws of gravity, though he's pretty glad for those things too.

_Millions and millions of years would still not give me half enough time to describe that tiny instant of all eternity when you put your arms around me and I put my arms around you._


End file.
